E-mails obtained from the Environmental Protection Agency show that Harvard University, Syracuse University and two of their researchers appear to have falsely claimed a study supporting EPA’s upcoming global warming rules was conducted “independent(ly)” of the agency.

In early May, a study published in the journal Nature Climate Change purported to support a key EPA claim about its forthcoming global warming rules aimed at coal-fired power plants. The New York Times’ headline, “EPA Emissions Plan Will Save Thousands of Lives, Study Finds,” typified the media coverage.

Across the media, the authors were innocuously described as simply university-affiliated “researchers.” After all, the researchers had declared they had “no competing financial interests” in their study. Both universities had issued media releases heralding the study as the “first independent, peer-reviewed paper of its kind.”

Study co-author Charles Driscoll of Syracuse University told the Buffalo News, “I’m an academic, not a politician. I don’t have a dog in this fight.” The claim of independence was also emphatically asserted by study co-author Jonathan Buonocore of Harvard University. “The EPA, which did not participate in the study or interact with its authors, Buonocore says, roundly welcomed its findings.” [Emphasis added].

But a closer look at these claims of independence raises serious doubts.

An online search of EPA’s web site revealed that Syracuse’s Driscoll has previously involved as a principal investigator in studies that received over $3.6 million in research grants from EPA. Co-author Dallas Burtraw, a researcher at the think tank Resources for the Future, had been involved in previous EPA grants totaling almost $2 million. Harvard co-author Jonathan I. Levy had been involved in over $9.5 million worth of grants. Co-author Joel Schwartz, also of Harvard, had been previously involved in over $31 million worth of grants from EPA.

Are we to believe that a group of researchers who had previously received some $45 million in grants from EPA, no doubt hoping for more in the future, could possibly not have any dog in this fight? It’s probably not necessary to ask how this slipped past the incurious mainstream media.

Intrigued by Bounocore’s odd assertion of absolutely no involvement with EPA, I submitted a request to EPA under the Freedom of Information Act for email between the study authors and EPA staff. Although subsequent wrangling with agency staff gave me doubt that I would ever get anything, I received, much to my surprise, 99 pages of emails after mere weeks.

A July 8, 2014 email shows Lambert arranging a conference call with EPA staff to get EPA’s input on the study. One of the EPA staff involved was the contact person for agency’s Clean Power Plan cost-benefit analysis. A subsequent e-mail shows that the top EPA staffer on the Clean Power Plan cost-benefit analysis was added to the call.

A July 15, 2014 email from Driscoll to an EPA staffer boasts of “considerable interest” in their analysis from unnamed outside “groups.” One sentence after buttering up the EPA staffer, Driscoll asks her if they could have a phone call to discuss fundraising for a conference Driscoll is organizing. No appearance of attempted financial conflict there?

A November 7, 2014 e-mail from Lambert to EPA about the study reads, “We would like to follow back up with you by phone to discuss possible next steps in this analysis and what role you might be able to play.”

This issue goes deeper than mere truth-telling. The EPA’s controversial Clean Power Plan hinges on the notion that shuttering coal plants will save lives.

The EPA’s proposed global warming plan ostensibly focuses on reducing carbon dioxide emissions from coal plants. But the bulk of the alleged benefits of the plan actually arise from collateral projections of lives supposedly saved by reducing coal plant emissions related to particulate matter and ozone.

As EPA values each life “saved” at about $10 million, the claim that the rules will save 6,600 lives per year puts the rules’ alleged benefits on the order of $66 billion per year, far in excess of industry projections of the rules’ costs.

These EPA claims, however, are controversial to say the least. A compelling alternate view is that no lives will be saved because, for one reason, EPA’s own extensive clinical research shows that particulate matter and ozone in outdoor air do not kill anyone.

The only casualty in this case is our confidence in the independence of EPA-funded researchers.

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dennis mitchell

The EPA has a long history of claims of saving lives( mercury, PM 2.5, radon etc) apparently based on political criteria but certainly not facts nor the scientific method. It was laughable that the world of alarmism got their panties in a wad over support money coming in from a few energy companies to the Smithsonian/Harvard relating to Dr. Soon’s fundamental science work. Mere pennies compared to the truck loads of gold that flows from EPA if you start with the answer they want and bend the data to fit. The policy that is derived from bogus work costs many orders of magnitude more than the bribe money paid to these universities to prop up political spin.

GR82DRV

Mega-grant-funded researchers like this are so personally and politically invested in the AGW scheme that they can no longer distinguish truth from lies. [i]Truth[/i] is simply whatever it takes to promote the current meme.

Those who are enabled to live in a bubble of tenured academic isolation tend to devolve into such delusions. Until true intellectual competition is reintroduced into this field we should expect no improvement.

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Amber

One of the most significant outcomes of the USA election is the public awakening to the utter contempt main street media holds them . Preachy condescending Liberals
pushing for the most part Democrat ideology while shutting out different values and political priorities . Telling the people what to think instead of listening . The Green Party garnering a whopping 1 % of the vote and was supposed to be the champion of what the President claims is the number one threat to the world . Global Warming rebranded Climate Change . Apparently people in the rust belt and over 30 other States disagreed with that as a priority .
The lazy media played along and sold scary climate stories they were spoon fed and in some cases refused to provide any balance to the BS they are spoon fed and have been spewing for years .
When their party lost they were so stunned all they could play was the race card and are still in denial holding out for hopeless recounts or conspiracy theories of Russian espionage and hacking .
The public has now been put back in control so if some clown weather women wants to pitch nonsense the public shifts to more objective information sources. Ones that aren’t the propaganda or fake news tool for a political party .
Universities that are now full on incubators for a one sided left wing agenda are really ripping those kids off but worst of all those like Colorado University have faculty openly saying they will not discuss opposing climate views . Education to Propaganda is a fine line . Colorado crossed it . The LA times crossed it . The Guardian , New York Times …. well what do you expect ?
Peoples actions demonstrated the jig is up . Short those media stocks they are going down .

Amber

If left wing pinko Saunders doesn’t like him he sounds like he has potential .
He looks like a guy with a bit of backbone and won’t be bullied by the Demo rat
whiners who have infiltrated the EPA .
Good luck Mr. Pruitt . …. hire security . When the looney tunes get desperate( and they are ) they go into ugly mode . Taking apart their $Trillion dollar con game is going to get them down right belligerent but who cares ? They did get about 1 % of the vote
after all . In other words the science fiction is settled in the minds of voters by about
99 % . The debate is over in their hot air world .
Drain away Mr. Pruitt the public backs you despite the shrill sound of whiners who just had their piggy bank broken .

Amber

The NASA data manipulators collectively don’t have an IQ over 38 . Bullshit merchants about to be out on their ass . Maybe Britain would like to hire NASA rejects .
Where oh where are Dicaprio and Gore going to get their alarmist propaganda ?
When is the much vaunted IPCC report coming out ? That’s right NEVER .
The jig is up they were played as useful idiots and are no longer required .
Did the IPCC hot pants smut writer ever beat those sexual harassment allegations ? Quality right through the organization .

Amber

Why would virtually no change to Antarctic ice in over 100 years be a surprise at all .
Whether it’s minus – 60 or minus – 58 certainly we know it is fricking cold and it is not about to thaw . Throw a few volcanos open below the surface and a part of it might
but if that is considered caused by climate change the science fiction is bigger than
we know .
The question is how much will the Antarctic grow by over the next 1000 years ?

Amirlach

JayPee

I’m willing to consider your argument, but I’m disturbed of your willing to give credence to the unproven and unfoundedly assumed presumption that CO2, CH4, and any other gasses that the extremist left hates are upon their dictum alone the mythical GREENHOUSE GASSES as they define them to be.

I ask you not to buy into their argument without the proof that they have never had.
They have always had conjecture, lies and hysteria and even a low percentage of consensus ( as if that means anything ).
But they have NEVER had proof of their mythical GREENHOUSE EFFECT ( as defined by the extremist left ).